The ‘Liberal’ Establishment – from the Guardian to Liberty - has averted its eyes as the Police Raid & Arrest Dissident Journalists & Palestine Solidarity Activists
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Natalie Strecker, a pacifist based in Jersey,
is the latest activist to be arrested by the Police on their favourite pretext,
supporting a proscribed organisation contrary to s.12(1A) of the Terrorism Act
2000. It’s called the ‘rule of law’.
The Jersey Post has more courage and integrity than the 'liberal' Guardian when it comes to Police attacks on activists
Since October 7 the Police have been very busy
trying to take out key Palestine solidarity activists. Electronic Intifada journalist Asa Winstanley had his house raided
and his electronic devices stolen by the Police a few weeks ago. Asa wasn’t
actually arrested but this gives a clue to the Police’s motivation. Stopping
the publication of alternative news. They prefer the ‘reliable’ media to be our
sole source of news – from the BBC to
the Guardian to the Daily Mail.
Sarah Wilkinson Interview
Sarah Wilkinson was also arrested recently by
Police thugs in balaclavas, who stole her passport, without even telling her,
whilst making it a condition of bail that she surrender it. They stole her
money, overturned her grandmother’s urn of ashes, hid her bank cards and trashed
her house. She was forbidden to even use a phone until the police were forced
to withdraw the bail conditions.
Palestine Action, a direct action group
committed to putting Elbit and other suppliers of arms to Israel have been the
victim of extreme repression with the Filton 10 being held until their trial in
a year’s time for doing what the Police should be doing, which is stopping the
activities of those contributing towards genocide in Palestine.
Only today
we hear that another 10 Palestine Action activists have been arrested.
But there is one law that the Police have ignored - the International Criminal Court Act 2001 - which makes being party to and aiding in the commission of war crimes and genocide a criminal act. We can’t imagine why they are not interested in enforcing this Act!
Sections 52 and 53 make it quite clear that genocide
and acts ancilliary to genocide, whether committed in this country or abroad,
will be treated as committed in this country.
Proceedings will only be initiated by the Attorney
General but I’m sure Richard Hermer wouldn’t want to be seen to be endorsing acts ancilliary
to genocide by his colleagues, such as supplying spare parts for aircraft that
bomb civilians!
I’ve been arrested twice in the past 12
months. Firstly on December 20 2023 when my flat was raided and all my
electronic devices were stolen. The second time was at the picket of notorious
racist, Israeli Ambassador
Tzipi Hotoveli’s residence when I compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to
those of the Nazis. My ‘offence’ was ‘racially aggravated harassment’ of a
Zionist, Richard Millett, the sole Zionist counter-demonstrator, who has called
holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos ‘scum’ for opposing Israel’s genocide.
There are no known examples of the Police
arresting Zionist demonstrators for violence, genocidal speech or racism.
Police harassment is strictly in one direction only.
I was recently informed that I was not being
charged, making my arrest and detention unlawful. A couple of weeks after my
arrest 79 year-old Israeli Professor
Haim Bresheeth, who is suffering from cancer, was arrested at the same
spot and held all night in a cold cell in
Holborn police station. He too has been told that he is not going to be
charged. Another unlawful arrest and detention.
Richard Medhurst, another journalist, was
stopped at an airport, detained, arrested and held in abysmal conditions and
again all his electronic devices were stolen.
Others arrested under the same pretexts
include Richard Barnard, an activist in Palestine Action.
Thomas
Bingham, former Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law
Lord, was described
as ‘the greatest jurist of our time’ by
Lord Hope of Craighead. Bingham formulated 8 rules of law in his book The
rule of law. A number of them are applicable to the present, cavalier
disregard of the law by the Police in their attempt to ride roughshod over our
rights and to suppress political dissent.
The most important for our purposes is the
eighth rule – which states that
The rule of law requires compliance by the
state with its obligations in international law as in national law.
Britain is party to the Genocide
Convention which therefore makes it part of British law but for the police
it is a no-go area. They are not
interested in enforcing provisions of international law that have been
incorporated in domestic law. Bear in mind the third of Bingham’s rules of law:
‘The laws of the land should apply equally to all’. It is clear that
there is one law for activists and another for government politicians and war criminals
like Starmer and Lammy.
Article 2 (a)-(d) of the Genocide Convention makes
it crystal clear that Israel’s behaviour in Gaza is a classic example of
genocide. Only the fifth provision, the forcible transfer of children out of
the area is inapplicable, because Israel prefers to kill Palestinian children
to transferring them out of harms way.
The fifth provision also makes it clear that
genocide can take place without anyone being killed so our idiot of a Foreign
Secretary, David Lammy’s assertion, that not enough people have been killed for
it to be a genocide, is simply wrong. Starmer’s denial of a genocide is more
sinister. He knows full well that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. Starmer is no different from a neo-Nazi holocaust
denier.
It is no surprise that the Guardian has failed to cover the
continued series of raids that have taken place. What is more surprising is
that Liberty, the old National Council
for Civil Liberties, has not responded to our invitation to provide a speaker.
It is as if all the erstwhile liberals have hauled up the White Flag and surrendered
to the security state.
Tony Greenstein
Lord
Bingham’s 8 Rules of Law –
(1) The law must be accessible and so far as
possible intelligible, clear and predictable.
(2) Questions
of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of
the law and not the exercise of discretion.
(3) The laws of the land should apply equally
to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation.
(4) Ministers
and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in
good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred,
without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably.
(5) The law must afford adequate protection of
fundamental human rights.
(6) Means
must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay,
bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve.
(7)
The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.
(8) The rule of law requires compliance by the
state with its obligations in international law as in national law.
In the
parliamentary debate in the House of Lords’s Constitution Committee, former
Attorney-General 2010-14, Dominic
Grieve KC, said the rule of law encompasses:
“the system of rules that we have
in our country to ensure that the decisions we make and the way the Executive
and, ultimately, individuals, organisations and institutions behave are subject
to the law—both our own domestic law and international law—and that the
processes by which the law can be applied work.48
David Gauke,
Lord Chancellor 2018–19 stated that the rule of law means:
“the … sense that the law applies
equally to everyone, that no one is above the law and, in particular, that the
Government must comply with the law.”49
Lord Keen of
Elie KC, Advocate General for Scotland 2015–20 s said:
“that all institutions and parties
should be equal before the law and subject to the law, that the law should be
publicly available, and they should be capable of ascertaining what their
rights and obligations are thereunder … It extends not just to domestic law but
to the sphere of international law.”50
It is clear that the actions of the Police and
the refusal of the present Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer KC
to take any action in regard to the enforcement of Britain’s legal obligations to
oppose genocide make a mockery of the Attorney General’s position as an
independent legal adviser to the government.
This is not surprising since Hermer was
appointed by Starmer to advise the government
on compliance with the law. It’s not
often that a poacher appoints the gamekeeper! The same contradictions occurred
in 2003 when the then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, completely
changed his position on the legality of the invasion of Iraq under
political pressure.
Richard Hermer has also bucked under the
pressure and is now openly condoning the refusal of the government to ban arms
sales to Israel even though they are contributing to the ongoing genocide.
One thing is for sure. We are not going to be cowed
by this Police State repression whilst genocide in going on in Gaza. We
understand full well the role that the Police have in backing Starmer’s policy of
giving 100% support to Genocide Joe Biden and Killer Kamala. That is why we are
holding a meeting on the arrests this Friday.
Please come along.
Tony Greenstein
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